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Grace as Anarchy: Jay Baker on Radical Acceptance and Agape · Revolution of Purpose Podcast

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Welcome to the Revolution of Purpose podcast.
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I'm your host, Jon Street,
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and each week we bring you conversations
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with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals
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who have aligned their life with purpose
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and created extraordinary results.
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So I'm gonna live through it and accept it radically
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with grace and hope and love.
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I mean, I would be proud to be in this house.
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It was an honor, I had so much fun.
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Tune in every Monday
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for the Revolution of Purpose solo show
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and every Thursday for Revolution of Purpose Conversation.
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Today is the second part of my interview with Jay Baker.
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It is really, really powerful.
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But if you missed the first part
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that dropped back on June 8th,
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then go back and check it out.
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I know you'll really enjoy it.
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And it really does set the stage
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for what we're gonna talk about today.
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Now, if you're ready to tune in, here we go.
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We're gonna talk about grace as anarchy
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and the way that it really transforms people's lives
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when we meet them right where they're at.
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Here's Jay Baker again.
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Well, that kind of brings us to sort of,
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well, I would say it's your signature message,
1:01
but you are kind of changing it to agape too now.
1:04
But I wanted to talk to you about grace as anarchy.
1:08
And I think that kind of getting past us versus them
1:11
is a great kind of segue into that.
1:14
Because I think just using the phrase grace as anarchy
1:18
is powerful and disruptive at the same time.
1:23
And I think that is a great way
1:26
to kind of describe that to you.
1:27
Can you explain to us some more
1:29
about what you mean by grace as anarchy?
1:32
Yeah, I mean, here's the strange thing is like,
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about six years, seven years ago,
1:40
it kind of came to me in my mind.
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And I was just kind of like,
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wasn't sure, really sure about it.
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And at the time I was in Minneapolis, in Minnesota,
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and I was working with this guy, Caleb,
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and I said, oh, what does this sound?
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He's like, oh, that's a neat idea.
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I said, you know, but I've never been,
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I've had people who've been like,
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oh, I wanna be just like you and work like you
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and then preach like you and then watch them preach
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and then realize that they were just saying stuff
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to offend people, you know,
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or like trying to get people riled up or start controversy.
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And I've always been the type
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of choosing your battles wisely.
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You know, I don't believe in saying something radical
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for radical sake.
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You know, I don't wanna, you know,
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if it's not truth or it's not gonna lead
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to something better, or it's not gonna be transparent,
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you know, I'm not gonna put somebody down
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or say something crazy, you know,
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like I'm always wanting to get to a deeper truth
2:39
with something, if it's gonna be something
2:41
that's kind of radical, it's gonna be radical
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because there's something important behind it,
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not just to be like, oh, I'm angry,
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or, oh, I like the attention.
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And that's what worries me a lot
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about a lot of spiritual teachers at this point in time,
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on the right and on the left.
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You know, I find that, you know,
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their anger and they're kind of like,
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well, I'm just gonna, you know,
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piss people off for the sake of getting likes.
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And I don't think that, I think that's not the way to go.
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That being said, I'm very cautious
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when it comes to things like this.
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I'm not an anarchist.
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I find anarchy interesting.
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My friend, Zoe, who is a they them,
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they helped me a lot with this understanding.
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They sent me a lot of stuff on anarchy.
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And what I didn't realize,
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there was a great German anarchist thinker
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whose name escapes me right now,
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a very long time ago, probably a hundred years ago,
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but was talking about the circle in the A,
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it means order.
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And the real concept of anarchy
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isn't this punk 70s thing where it's like,
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everybody's going crazy and it's chaos.
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You know, the idea was,
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is not needing to have this authority over us
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telling us what to do
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and that we would live in an orderly life.
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Now, if you've lived in places where I've lived,
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you'd know that that would pretty much be impossible
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to just trust people to be their own people.
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Maybe not, I don't know.
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I'm just not an anarchist.
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But the concept of anarchy saying
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it doesn't bow to any system,
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that there's no system that can control it,
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there's no authority,
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but there's still order in it,
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but there's no authority to it.
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And what I found is I was noticing
4:32
that people always wanted to put an asterisk next to grace.
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And I've spoken on grace
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and grace has been my message before anarchy is grace.
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Grace has always been my message.
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Some people say I'm a one trick pony,
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which thank you, I'll take it.
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It's a good trick.
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It's a good trick.
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Yeah.
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And I didn't hear it growing up.
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So I like to talk about it.
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And even my Lutheran friends who talk about it,
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they forget about it sometimes and need to be reminded.
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But this concept of acceptance,
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Paul Tillich has a great sermon.
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And I recommend anybody get a chance to Google it
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because it comes right up.
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It's by Paul Tillich.
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It's called, You Are Accepted.
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If you want to hear it read
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by a beautifully sounding Irish man, Peter Rollins,
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he read it for us
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and it's on our Revolution Church YouTube channel
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or on any of our podcasts.
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You can find Peter Rollins' reading
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of You Are Accepted by Paul Tillich
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if you don't want to read it.
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It's one of the best things I've seen on grace in my life.
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Read on my life.
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It should be canonized.
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I like it so much.
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I'm writing that down.
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Yeah.
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And so, but what I've realized is that people always want
5:52
to hit an asterisk, not buy it.
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Even when I first called my dad
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and I was really discovering grace
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for the first time around 19, 20 years old, probably 20.
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I said, why didn't we talk more about this growing up?
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And he goes, well, it always seemed too good to be true.
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And I was like, wow, you know, and it just blew my mind.
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It was probably what brought me back into the church.
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I had quit Revolution for a year,
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went and got a job at the Gap.
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I was a denim expert at the Gap.
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If you want a denim, you come talk to me.
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And if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.
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That was one of our sayings.
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But grace kind of got me back into things.
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And it was this complete acceptance.
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You know, it's not about knowing more,
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believing more, doing more, it's just, you are accepted.
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And this idea that I was like, God loves me and accepted me
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if I was drunk in a gutter or if I was preaching,
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but that grace was sufficient for me either way,
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blew my mind.
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But what I realized is this idea of the asterisk.
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And you'll see this with Agape as well,
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is why I was able to kind of pull that into this concept.
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But with grace, people put this asterisk
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in the liberal church, the progressive church will say,
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well, too much grace will cause you to not do anything.
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Like you won't help the poor,
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you won't do these certain things, you won't do that.
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But grace says it's still grace
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even if you don't do those things, okay?
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That's the harsh reality is of anarchy is grace.
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Your death might be, I mean,
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your faith might be kind of dead to others
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and worthless to others, but it's still grace.
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And I also believe grace is transformative.
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There's a quote in East of Eden.
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This is, now that I don't have to be perfect, I can be good.
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And for me, I was a drunk and I couldn't get sober.
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And all of a sudden I realized God loved me
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just the way I was.
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And I went to a, I had gone to a meetings before
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and it just was like,
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hey, he's not getting sober is not for me.
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And all of a sudden I was going, oh, this isn't about me.
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I mean, this isn't about God.
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My sobriety is not about God.
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Now, some people would be like,
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oh my Lord, how do you say that?
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I didn't want to be miserable anymore.
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I didn't want to be, I wanted to talk about grace.
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So when people read stuff like in Galatians,
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when it says you don't get the fruit of the spirit
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for drunken and carousing, well, that was what I,
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what my thing was is like,
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if I'm constantly drunk and passed out
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and if I kill somebody in my car or I die in driving,
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I can't tell people about grace.
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And I don't, and I'm, I feel miserable all the time.
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So I went and got sober and stayed sober
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and haven't had a drink since
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because it was about knowing that I was accepted
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and this wasn't about me
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and any future of afterlife or anything like that.
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All that came out of it.
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I know the transformative power of grace.
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I'm sitting here as proof
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of the transformative power of grace, okay?
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Now on the other side, on the right,
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they have their asterisks.
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Oh, it'll be a license to sin.
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Oh, you can do whatever you want.
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And if you think about it,
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it's so easy to see in a lot of evangelical churches
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because every head bowed, every eye closed,
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God loves you, it's a free gift.
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If you want to be saved and you raise your hand
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and then what happens right after that?
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Now stand up because if you deny me before man,
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God will deny you and you got to come down here
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and it's going to cost you everything.
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It's like someone said, here's a free car, here you go.
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Now don't forget this with this gift I'm giving you,
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it's going to cost you everything.
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And you're going to have to pay the monthly bill
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and you're going to have to get insurance
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and it's not a gift.
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I mean, I was online, I did an interview,
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just my last podcast interview I did with somebody
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who was a very conservative evangelical comedian
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and he goes, but it costs everything,
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it costs you everything.
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I'm like, so you're saying Jesus died in vain.
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Like you can't, we want it both ways.
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It's bait and switch.
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If you miss the car payment,
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you're burning an eternal life.
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Right, right.
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So you've get this concept
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and what they really don't realize
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is the concept of hell was really built around people
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thinking that their enemies were going to continue to win
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and they just wanted a justice in the afterlife.
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People should really do, even just start,
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just start with the word study of Greek meanings of hell.
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Your whole concept will change just from that.
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But they have this idea
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that you're going to go do whatever you want
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and it's going to give you a license to sin.
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And I'm like, no, I never needed a license to do it.
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And by saying it's anarchy is saying
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you can't put an asterisk next to it.
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I don't care if you're,
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and that's another thing I've always struggled
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with Calvinism is they have these,
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if you ever listened to some Calvinist preachers
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speak about grace,
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they speak about it in a really beautiful way.
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But at the end of the day,
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their concept is that God's created all these people
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to burn in hell and predestined all these people
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to be tortured for eternity in a gas chamber
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that never stops.
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So it's not really that amazing of grace.
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It's just grace for the selected few.
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And so there's another big asterisk.
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So for me, it was just saying like,
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it's going to move out of your theology.
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It's going to move out of your denomination.
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It doesn't listen to any of these rules.
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It doesn't care what your board thinks.
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It doesn't care what your denomination thinks.
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It doesn't care what your,
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you know, your accountability department thinks.
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So it doesn't care what your, you know, grace is grace.
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And it's a form of anarchy.
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And that's the beautiful part.
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Cause you'll hear people say like, you know,
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often atheists will say like,
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oh, so the guy can kill a hundred kids
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and get in prison and turn his life over to Jesus.
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You know, like they hate that.
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It's, yeah, no, grace is completely unfair.
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It's, and that's why it's anarchy.
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That's why it's chaos for some people
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when they hear about it.
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It's complete chaos in a way.
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It's almost that order doesn't seem to be there for them,
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but that order is there for that person receiving the grace
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because when they realize, well, I don't have to be perfect.
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I can be good.
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I am accepted.
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And that's when it kind of,
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you can add the word amazing in front of that.
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And that doesn't mean we don't want justice.
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That doesn't mean we don't work towards justice
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and we don't work towards peace
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and we don't help other people.
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All I can say is the more I've understood grace,
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the more I've worked towards justice,
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the more I've worked towards nonviolence,
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the more I've worked towards anti-war.
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And a lot of people, well,
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that sounds very liberal of you, Jay.
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But for me, it's like,
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well, how is it Christians keeping transgender people
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from using a bathroom in Texas, loving like Jesus?
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How is keeping people from having affordable wages,
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anything like Jesus?
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How is people not having healthcare
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in the richest country in the world?
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How is that like Jesus?
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And, you know, we focus,
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we major in minors often in the church
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and really forget, like,
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we're supposed to love our enemies.
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That was a radical message for Jesus.
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Loving the other in the agape way was huge
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because it wasn't just saying,
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love the other person in your neighborhood
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and in your town.
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It was like, love the other people over there too.
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Love your enemies, do good to those.
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That was a radical message.
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That is really the legacy of Christ.
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You know, when we see these constant going,
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we're raising money for Uganda, raising, you know,
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that is the legacy of Jesus.
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And caring about the stranger,
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caring about an enemy, you know,
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Dr. King said, thank goodness,
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God said, love your enemy and not like them.
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Cause I can't like somebody who wants to lynch me
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or who's burning down my neighborhood,
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but I can love them because it becomes a principle.
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It becomes a choice.
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Agape and how agape becomes anarchy
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is not only does it fight against a system that says,
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you're not supposed to love that person.
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Or it would say, you know,
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it would say cancel culture.
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It's like, nope.
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I have to show, I'm going to show love to that person.
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Do I like that person?
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No, not necessarily.
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Do I like the things they did?
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Hell no.
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But am I going to show them love?
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Yes.
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Now, so now you're pushing against a system,
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but also I've just made it clear
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that you're not only just pushing against the system.
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When I said, do I like that person?
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Oh, not really.
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Do I like what they did?
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Hell no.
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I'm also practicing anarchy against my own instincts
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of saying, push that person away.
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Do that.
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You know, so this,
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that's how the anarchy kind of comes into agape
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and how it comes into grace.
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And it becomes quite an amazing thing.
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And for me, one of the things I love about,
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sorry, I'm talking so much.
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One of the things I love about Paul Tillich
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is he calls God the ground of being.
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And when Paul Tillich talks about the sacred
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and the secular being connected,
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and you can see it anywhere, you know,
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sacred is not necessarily always going to be sacred.
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Sometimes, and the fact that Paul Tillich,
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someone like this German theologian
14:58
has made God actually God,
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has not put limits on it and said,
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well, God wants us to all sit
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and then sing to usher in presence
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and take off our shoes and say,
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you know, he's saying God is the ground of being.
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God is everywhere and allows God to be God.
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And I think agape as anarchy and grace as anarchy
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allows God to be bigger than our own understanding
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and even bigger than our own desires
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and our own human limitations
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and allows God to be infinite
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and allows us to be finite
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and experience the infinite through that.
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And that's very tough for people.
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But the problem is, is a lot of people
15:41
serve a very small, petty God
15:45
that seems to only be concerned with their own concerns
15:48
and only convictions with their convictions.
15:51
And in my understanding that whatever God is,
15:56
I don't think God is this man in the sky with a big beard,
16:00
you know, with opinions in a noteboard,
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a note writing down what we're doing wrong and right.
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You know, I think it's much, much bigger than that.
16:09
I mean, everybody was in space this last week
16:11
talking about space and how big it is.
16:13
And you say all these different universes
16:14
and all these different black holes
16:16
and all these things that shouldn't exist.
16:17
Oh, there's a black hole going backwards.
16:21
That shouldn't be happening, you know, but it's happening.
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You know, so to think of that point,
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it has to be much, much bigger.
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But instead we kind of imprison it
16:30
into like these two pieces of, you know, leather
16:33
and say, well, it's all here.
16:34
But then we start to realize,
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oh, there's also forgeries there.
16:37
There's also things that are wrong with that.
16:39
And we limit God and we create bibolatry
16:43
and make Christianity denominations into idols.
16:48
And now we're making our politicians into idols.
16:51
And it's frankly very disturbing and very scary that we,
16:56
and that the fact that the fundamentalists alone
16:58
have forgotten the fundamentalists
17:00
of loving their neighbor as themselves
17:02
and forgetting the who is my neighbor
17:05
and the story of the prodigal son and those types of things.
17:08
So for me, that's the whole concept
17:10
between grace as anarchy and then adds to agape as anarchy.
17:14
And to be honest with you, this kind of idea of agape
17:16
really is changing me because if you think about it,
17:19
the church really went dead on talking about agape
17:21
for many, many years.
17:23
Just as though like, and grace,
17:25
you probably heard more about grace than agape.
17:28
And then they're like, oh, agape is like a God love.
17:30
And so you're, but a lot of people feel,
17:32
and as I did for years,
17:33
is that you have to have this emotion.
17:37
You know, you have to change your emotions
17:39
and you have to feel this love
17:41
and you have to do this fuzzy stuff.
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And agape says, no, you know, you don't have to do that.
17:47
You can still choose love
17:48
even when those things aren't there.
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And so that's really tough work.
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That is the narrow road.
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Like we've made the narrow road and the wide road,
17:57
something that's, you know,
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to my, I thought growing up the wide road
18:01
was like cigarettes and premarital sex
18:03
and R-rated movies, you know, not, you know,
18:07
that kind of thing.
18:08
When really that wide road is war
18:11
and getting rid of the other
18:14
with the idea that somehow your life will be magical
18:17
if the other's, you know, enjoyment is not in your sight
18:20
or the other is taken care of, you know,
18:22
this kind of, what did I call it?
18:25
I don't remember, you know,
18:26
when we were displaced by another, you know,
18:28
we try to get, you know, like we're doing with immigrant,
18:31
our immigrant brothers and sisters,
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like we just get rid of them if we just do that, you know,
18:35
and then we're not even focusing
18:37
on the actual issues of what's happening in the world
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or dropping bombs, that's the wide road.
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Agape says, you know, I mean, you watch it on TV.
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They're like, well, the vice president went down
18:47
and talked to Iran for 14 hours and it didn't work.
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And I'm going, we've spent billions of dollars on bombs,
18:55
not just in Iran, but given billions of dollars to Israel
18:58
to kill more Gazans than, you know,
19:05
it's pretty much a genocide happening there.
19:08
And yet 14 hours is, you know, well, we gave it a shot.
19:12
You know what I mean?
19:13
To me, that's like, no, no, no, peace is the harder thing.
19:17
You know, having this conversation,
19:18
that's why I really love this guy, John Hume,
19:20
who helped bring an end to the troubles in Northern Ireland
19:23
and the Northern Irish civil war.
19:25
You know, this peace process that allowed people
19:27
to compromise, allowed people to come together
19:31
and work out their differences,
19:32
much like the book of Galatians.
19:36
Well, and we're, you know, blessed are the peacemakers.
19:38
You know, I mean, it's right there in the Beatitudes,
19:42
but it seems like the Beatitudes
19:43
are not the thing to preach right now
19:47
because they're not gonna fit the whole us versus them,
19:51
the whole, you know, they're evil,
19:55
so we've got to kill them type mentality.
19:57
But I mean, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
20:00
Like there's multiple things that talk about
20:03
how we should love our enemy and love our neighbor.
20:05
And those just aren't the hot button topics,
20:10
it seems in church.
20:11
Well, and you find a lot of these folks
20:12
don't understand biblical texts.
20:16
They'll use old covenant and old Testament
20:18
to justify war and to justify these type of things,
20:23
you know, and I'm having to sit down and like,
20:24
do you not realize that when Jesus said,
20:26
you've heard it said, but I say, you know,
20:30
and it's, that's what worries me
20:33
is that it feels like a lot of these folks,
20:34
like sometimes I'll recommend folks find a new church.
20:38
Like, I'm like, if this is the type of thing
20:39
that's being taught in your church
20:41
and you're hearing in your community,
20:42
you might wanna think about going to another community
20:46
because this is just not,
20:49
this is just not even the fundamentals of the faith,
20:52
much less good theology.
20:54
Please pardon me while I interrupt your podcast
20:56
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And now let's get back to this podcast.
22:05
And it can be toxic too.
22:06
So many things that are taught from churches like that
22:09
can be toxic and can be gaslighting
22:12
and can just be things that are not healthy to hear.
22:16
Like, I tell people who are,
22:20
like they're affirming,
22:21
but they're going to a church that's not affirming.
22:23
And I'm like, first, if you feel called to be there,
22:26
try to change it from within.
22:28
Then if it becomes something
22:29
that is absolutely negative for you
22:33
and it's not a healthy place, then leave.
22:36
You know?
22:37
So I think that kind of goes to what you're saying.
22:39
Maybe it's time to change churches,
22:42
either change it from the inside
22:43
or change it by getting a different church.
22:45
Would you say that Jesus Christ
22:48
was kind of the ultimate anarchist?
22:51
Well, I mean, you could, I mean, it's easy to,
22:54
I mean, in some ways he really was.
22:56
I mean, riding down on a donkey down the middle of,
23:01
it wasn't,
23:03
but he was also very inclusive.
23:07
It's interesting to look at Jesus.
23:08
I mean, Jesus, you know,
23:09
you could say he had a bit of anarchy in him.
23:11
He had a bit of,
23:16
what's the word I'm looking for?
23:23
You can even say some even,
23:26
some aspects of communism and things like that.
23:31
I mean, Jesus was like, feed everybody,
23:32
take care of everybody, take off your jacket.
23:34
If someone asks for your jacket, give them your shirt.
23:36
You know, I mean, he was a radical inclusionist
23:40
and I think Jesus is always gonna kind of,
23:47
the cool thing about Jesus
23:49
is he's always gonna kind of test all of us as humans.
23:57
So yeah, there's always,
23:58
Jesus is going to act as a form of anarchy
24:00
in all of our lives at certain times.
24:06
And we have to wrestle with that and deal with that.
24:08
And then, you know, you have to wrestle with,
24:10
you know, the different gospels and, you know,
24:13
and what is Jesus?
24:14
What is, who, what's Jesus?
24:15
These are, you know, we're not reading the words of Jesus.
24:17
We're reading the words of someone else
24:19
who've said, this is what Jesus said.
24:21
You know, so it's,
24:24
you know, to take it and hold it and wrestle with it
24:28
is vitally important.
24:30
But I think we can agree that that basic message of,
24:32
I mean, the Apostle Paul,
24:34
who's actually even closer to the life of Jesus,
24:36
his writings are closer to the life of Jesus.
24:39
He was probably very familiar
24:40
with the teachings of Christ.
24:42
With Christ says, the only thing that matters,
24:45
he didn't say the most important thing.
24:46
He said, the only thing that matters
24:48
is faith expressing itself through love.
24:52
You know, so yeah, there's gonna be anarchy there
24:56
and it might be personal and it might be social
24:59
and, but that's how it is.
25:02
I mean, it's, so yeah.
25:03
It's amazing.
25:05
You know.
25:05
2,000 years later, it still challenges the system.
25:07
Still challenges the system.
25:09
You know, and then the fact that Jesus
25:11
is living in an occupied territory,
25:13
Middle Eastern culture.
25:15
He's got, you know, a tax collector on his,
25:18
as part of his group.
25:19
He's got zealots who wanted to kill tax collectors
25:22
as part of his 12.
25:24
You know, he's kind of got a ragtag bunch of people
25:28
in his group.
25:29
And then, you know, the apostle Paul comes along,
25:31
who's this other really strange character.
25:34
And yeah, it's quite a, quite a,
25:39
I mean, if you think about even like 1 John
25:42
and how it calls us to even love even more
25:44
and that God is love and those types of things.
25:47
You know, it's,
25:51
you know, works.
25:53
I was just told works were something else.
25:55
I was convinced works were something else, you know.
25:58
And growing up, and I think a lot of people
26:00
still have that kind of mentality.
26:03
You know, when you talk about,
26:06
people will be more shocked if I say shit
26:10
in a comment than the fact that I'm talking
26:12
about 190,000 dead grade school aged girls
26:17
who are the age of my daughter, you know.
26:21
And to me, that means we've lost,
26:24
we've lost something.
26:25
You know, the fact that more evangelicals,
26:27
you know, I posted this thing today
26:29
of the picture that Trump put up of himself
26:33
as like Jesus or God or whatever.
26:35
He's like healing some guy, you know.
26:37
And I'm like, but the fact that it's like,
26:38
this is what's upsetting you
26:40
when we've killed 190,000.
26:42
It's when we've, even when Biden was in office,
26:45
you know, we're giving billions of dollars
26:47
to militaries to kill and maim children.
26:51
You know, the fact that it's taking these type of things,
26:54
it's like to make us realize there's a problem.
26:58
Speaks of a problem, but it's not necessarily
27:02
that this guy's just the problem.
27:03
The problem is we may be the problem
27:06
and how we see things and how we become numb to things
27:10
may be the problem.
27:11
And how we've chosen to selectively see things
27:15
or be quiet about certain things,
27:17
or, you know, it just speaks very well.
27:19
I mean, I feel like the politicians are becoming idols.
27:22
Even when Kamala Harris was running, you know,
27:29
and I saw a lot of my friends who were anti, you know,
27:34
what was happening in Gaza,
27:35
all of a sudden be like,
27:36
well, we can't talk about that right now
27:38
because we've got to get this person in.
27:40
And I'm just, I'm not, that's not me.
27:43
You know, I have people say,
27:44
well, Kamala went over, you know, telling me all this.
27:46
I'm like, listen, you know,
27:48
I have to speak about injustice when injustice is there.
27:52
You know, I don't have the, I'm not a psychic,
27:57
can't see the future,
27:58
but when innocent people are suffering and being killed
28:01
and when our neighbors are being destroyed, you know,
28:05
my call as a pastor and my conviction
28:08
is to speak truth to power,
28:11
whether that power be a liberal power
28:14
or a conservative power, you know,
28:16
I have to be willing to offend across the board
28:20
and be willing to speak the truth across the board
28:22
to the people who are in power.
28:24
That's why I've always liked people like Cornell West
28:26
and folks like that,
28:27
who've always been willing to speak truth
28:32
to even their own candidates and their own people to say,
28:35
hey, you know, we're missing the mark on this.
28:38
And so I think that's, it's vitally important
28:40
if you're going to put yourself in that position
28:44
of being someone who is a,
28:47
I don't even know what I am anymore,
28:48
but someone who's trying to be a peacemaker
28:51
and a speaker and a preacher or a pastor, or, you know,
28:54
I need to come up and find another word for all this stuff
28:57
because it's strange to me, but yeah.
28:59
I mean, I think, I know you said you're not an anarchist
29:03
by the typical definition,
29:04
but the fact that you're speaking the truth,
29:07
even if it isn't popular is a form of that.
29:12
And I think that you're on the right track
29:14
when it comes to Grace's anarchy and Agape as anarchy.
29:19
I know we've got to wrap up
29:20
because you've been especially generous
29:21
with your time, and I really appreciate it.
29:25
Love having good conversations.
29:27
Oh my gosh, me too.
29:28
Yeah, that's, this has been even more
29:31
than I hoped it would be.
29:32
It's amazing.
29:33
How would you define purpose for yourself right now?
29:43
Survival.
29:44
Yeah.
29:48
I mean, you've heard my purpose through this.
29:50
You've heard like my passion
29:52
and my convictions through this, but I'm also a father
29:57
and I'm always going to put my kids above my ministry
30:00
and above all that.
30:02
People are like, oh no, you've got to put God first.
30:04
I'm like, no, I've seen what happens to families when that,
30:07
you know, who do I love when I love my God?
30:09
I love the others.
30:10
Well, if that's true, then loving my children
30:12
or even is a higher calling.
30:18
You know, I work three to four jobs this past year.
30:25
I've worked three to four jobs at a time.
30:28
And right now I'm working three just
30:31
because the fourth job is they're having
30:34
such financial issues that they can't afford
30:36
to hire me on right now.
30:38
Otherwise I would be working for them.
30:41
So it's also to feed my children
30:44
and to pay rent and to pay the bills.
30:48
I mean, yesterday, I mean, just the reality
30:50
of this is the realities of life, okay?
30:52
Yesterday I'm driving home from the grocery store
30:56
and my check engine light comes on.
31:00
And I just wanted to, I was just like
31:02
my first reaction was just panic.
31:04
I wanted to cry.
31:06
It was something to do with something called an ELC
31:09
or something so that when that happens,
31:10
your car, Volkswagen's do this.
31:13
Your car automatically goes into what they call limp mode.
31:16
Strange term.
31:18
So you have to put Viagra into the car.
31:19
No.
31:20
So the car goes into limp mode and it starts to slow down.
31:24
It's not gonna stop.
31:25
But I was like, is this gonna stop?
31:25
I had to like, I put it in my phone
31:28
and there was a YouTube video
31:30
because I was still driving.
31:30
So I'm playing this YouTube video,
31:32
finding out what could cause it and what.
31:33
So, okay, the slowing down is okay.
31:35
Just take my foot off the pedal a little bit
31:37
and it'll get me home.
31:37
So I got home and I have to take my car on
31:41
on Wednesday morning to be fixed.
31:44
And like, I also have to pay my rent today
31:46
cause I gotta pay the rent in the middle of the month.
31:49
Also, one of my jobs is working for my landlord.
31:54
So the purpose is like just trying to live life
31:57
on life's terms and practice like this kind
32:00
of radical acceptance of the moment
32:02
that I find myself in well,
32:03
and learning all the things and using all the tools
32:06
that I've learned through 12 step programs
32:09
and good therapy and things like that.
32:12
Because my purpose is also is like,
32:14
oh, why do you raise?
32:15
I hate raising money, but I have to, you know,
32:17
if you don't ask for people to donate,
32:19
you know, the donations don't, don't.
32:21
I mean, I haven't had a full paycheck
32:22
and probably it's, I'm embarrassed,
32:25
embarrassing to say, and like,
32:27
it's really embarrassing the more I think,
32:28
I haven't actually thought about it until just now.
32:30
Like it's probably been about four years
32:33
I'm doing this work because, you know,
32:36
once COVID hit, we went completely online,
32:39
moved to Seattle to be here with my kids, you know?
32:43
So what's my purpose is to be a good father
32:45
to my kids, to be with my kids.
32:46
I walk to them to school.
32:47
One of my other jobs is an afterschool program
32:50
where I work at their school
32:52
and I work all the kids at the school,
32:54
make sure everybody gets to their afterschool classes.
32:57
And if a teacher needs help with a child or a kid,
33:00
or, you know, and then I make sure all the kids get home.
33:02
Sometimes I drive them home.
33:04
If their parents, something happened with their parents,
33:06
you know, if a kid's missing,
33:07
I have to contact the parents.
33:08
We track down the kid, you know?
33:11
And I love that work.
33:12
That's work I'm really passionate about.
33:14
I also do groundskeeping, basically.
33:16
Is it groundskeeping or what's the other word
33:19
for groundskeeping?
33:22
I know you've been doing like landscaping.
33:24
Landscaping, that's the word I was looking for.
33:25
Thank you, sir.
33:27
Dyslexia and ADHD, all those words pop out.
33:30
So I do a lot of landscaping work,
33:33
which I'll tell you what, at 50 years old.
33:38
We're not getting any younger, Jay.
33:40
No, shoveling dirt and moving wheelbarrows
33:44
and lifting up sidewalks with jacks and lifted up.
33:48
It's pretty cool though.
33:49
We lifted up a backyard, like almost three inches
33:53
because it wasn't level with dirt
33:56
and all the different types of dirt you use in the rocks.
33:59
I mean, I'm learning a lot about that stuff.
34:03
And I do that for two reasons.
34:06
I do these jobs because it's nothing,
34:07
I don't enjoy it too much.
34:09
I mean, I'm starting to enjoy it a little bit,
34:10
but you're outside and you're not thinking
34:12
about like the world's burning right now.
34:16
So it's kind of nice.
34:18
But I do that for my children and for this.
34:22
That is my purpose in life is to make sure
34:24
that my children know they are loved
34:27
and they are accepted and they're able to become adults
34:30
and live in a world where they know about love.
34:35
They know about acceptance, that they're good people,
34:38
that they care about their friends,
34:39
that they know about nonviolence,
34:41
that they know about these things.
34:43
You know, when the young man,
34:48
young African-American man was killed in Minnesota,
34:51
we were living in Minnesota.
34:53
And, you know, I had a children's book,
34:56
Martin Luther King, and we went through it.
34:57
And they know that Martin Luther King is one of my heroes.
35:00
And, you know, just trying to be the best dad I can be,
35:05
taking care of my kids and doing this work.
35:09
That is my purpose and my cause.
35:11
I also have a wonderful girlfriend.
35:14
She lives in Colorado.
35:15
We have a long distance relationship and it works well
35:18
because we both have crazy lives and a lot to go.
35:20
So we only get to see each other every couple of months.
35:23
But those are kind of my purposes in life to, you know,
35:27
have that peace and that love
35:30
and that wonderful relationship with my girlfriend
35:34
and to have that wonderful relationship with my kids
35:36
and to help the world become a better place.
35:40
And I really believe that my work is, you know,
35:44
I'm not very confident in a lot of things.
35:46
Let me just be really clear about that.
35:48
I might come off self-confident.
35:50
I'm really a very insecure, quiet person.
35:55
I come alive when I talk about this stuff,
35:56
cause I love it.
35:57
I feel like I have the same fire in me that my mother had.
36:01
Often I'll hear, like, I like to listen to Mark Maron
36:04
and he's a comedian and other people like that.
36:07
And they talk about how they have this,
36:10
like they don't have a choice to do what they do.
36:13
You know, it's just, they have to do it.
36:16
And that's how I feel about ministry.
36:18
I mean, I've been knocked down.
36:19
Yesterday I posted something about being really tired
36:22
and that the talk was going to be late and everything.
36:23
And then someone would text me like,
36:25
maybe this is God telling you to stop doing
36:27
what you're doing.
36:28
They misspelled God.
36:29
So I had a little fun with that.
36:30
But the point is, is like, it's really funny.
36:34
Like people don't realize that it's a compulsion,
36:39
you know, it's a disease.
36:40
It's like, I will always do this.
36:43
If I'm working in a factory, you know, 10 hours a day,
36:47
you know, I'm going to love my kids
36:49
and be good dad to my kids.
36:51
And I'm going to be thinking about grace
36:53
and talking about grace and discussing that
36:55
with the people I work with.
36:57
You know, maybe I'll make a little video
36:59
and put it out there.
37:00
But I feel like, just like my mom is,
37:02
that my job is to let people know they are loved
37:05
and that they are accepted,
37:06
but also to see that within the other.
37:08
And to bring people together
37:10
and to work towards the beloved community,
37:12
to help people realize the importance of nonviolence,
37:14
the importance of being peacemakers,
37:16
the importance of self-acceptance.
37:18
And, you know, it sounds like all these weird,
37:20
like kind of squishy things,
37:23
but they're vital for if we want to move forward
37:25
in the future.
37:26
You know, another thing we say at Revolution,
37:28
we even have a sticker that says, this is argue well.
37:31
You know, teaching people to be able to have arguments.
37:33
One of the things that worries me is often
37:35
I get these folks who come from these evangelical churches
37:38
who are arguing with me.
37:40
And then all of a sudden they don't know how to argue.
37:41
So they start rebuking me in the name of Jesus
37:43
or telling me, oh, you support gay people
37:45
because they can't talk about politics
37:47
or they can't talk about theology
37:49
because they've wandered away from their group.
37:52
You know, helping people live life in real life
37:55
on life's terms and not jump into these little communities
37:58
where there's always an outsider.
38:00
Helping people live in public spaces
38:03
and live and let live.
38:06
I mean, that's, you know, everyone's like,
38:07
well, I don't want them to go to hell,
38:09
but we're not letting people be people, you know?
38:11
And that's part of loving people is saying,
38:15
hey, I can't control that.
38:16
I'm not gonna control them to do this,
38:18
but to encourage people to find that kind of grace
38:21
and that love and acceptance.
38:23
I'm not really too concerned with an afterlife.
38:26
I'm more concerned, you know, people say,
38:28
well, what about life after death?
38:29
I'm concerned about life before death and living now
38:32
and helping people do that in a way where we lessen hell
38:36
in people's lives now.
38:39
And so that's, those are my kids in that
38:42
and doing that and making the sacrifices
38:45
that it takes to do those things.
38:46
And honestly, I'm exhausted, I'm tired.
38:48
I feel a little bit better today,
38:50
but like I worked really hard Friday.
38:53
Good friend of mine I hadn't seen in like 20 years
38:55
was in town, so we went and hung out.
38:56
He had been at Revolution since day one.
38:59
So it was really cool to spend some time with him.
39:01
I mean, back in Arizona and that was really cool.
39:08
But the next day I just, I couldn't get out of bed,
39:12
and then yesterday I was trying to prepare my talk
39:14
and get everything ready.
39:15
I just was like, this isn't gonna,
39:17
I usually just speak at 11.
39:19
I wasn't able to do my talk until 7.30 at night.
39:21
I had wrote in and out,
39:22
but I just didn't have the energy.
39:24
And I guess that comes with being 50
39:27
and doing physical labor and things like that.
39:29
So it's just, that's the realities of where I'm at
39:32
and where I live.
39:32
And so, yeah, there's a couple of purposes there.
39:37
Well, and what stands out to me,
39:39
I think from this conversation
39:40
really is how much of your purpose
39:45
is not just being a good father to your children
39:48
so that they learn these things,
39:50
but it's just using your voice for justice, period.
39:54
You know, the way that you are standing up
39:57
for the little guy,
39:59
the way that you speak up for the marginalized,
40:02
the way that you show love and agape and grace.
40:07
Honestly, Jay, you look a lot like Jesus.
40:09
So I think you're achieving your purpose, absolutely.
40:15
I appreciate it.
40:17
I prefer not to be the Apostle Paul
40:19
and have to be in the tent business,
40:20
but maybe one day.
40:23
I always take pictures and video everything I do
40:25
because I always realize,
40:27
if I ever get back into the place
40:28
where I'm able to just write books
40:30
and make a living doing this work,
40:32
I don't ever wanna take it for granted.
40:35
Because when you grow up in something that's so big,
40:38
like Heritage USA and PTL,
40:41
we really hit a really interesting, amazing area
40:45
when we were in Atlanta
40:46
where we had a great group of people.
40:50
We weren't a community.
40:51
We were in a community.
40:53
The church wasn't the community.
40:55
We were in a...
40:56
And that's how we ended up meeting in a bar
40:57
is because they found out we needed a place to be.
40:59
And one of the things we realized at Revolution
41:01
is that church is not a place to be.
41:04
And one of the things we realized at Revolution
41:06
is that church is not the community.
41:08
Every other church had like coffee houses
41:10
and all this stuff inside their churches
41:12
and all this stuff.
41:13
And we were just like,
41:14
no, we're gonna be in community.
41:16
We're not gonna be a community.
41:18
And, you know, but at that same time,
41:21
I wasn't settled because I thought,
41:24
oh, I have to do something bigger.
41:25
I have to do more.
41:26
I have to do, you know.
41:27
And then recently I was having a conversation
41:29
with someone who's like,
41:30
oh, you should start a church there in Seattle
41:32
and then find a place.
41:34
You know how hard it is to start a church
41:35
with you don't know anybody.
41:36
Like, what am I just gonna show up at a place
41:38
and start talking, set up everything,
41:40
tear everything down, pay the bills, you know.
41:44
So just learning to be comfortable where I'm at,
41:47
accept myself in the story that I find myself in,
41:53
you know, and not let regret come in.
41:55
Just, you know, just really practicing
41:57
this kind of radical acceptance of not like,
41:59
oh, I'm digging ditches and I used to write books.
42:01
You know what I mean?
42:02
It's easy to fall into that kind of self-pity
42:05
and that kind of, you know,
42:07
and you've got to work to let that go as well too.
42:10
That's a big part of it.
42:11
And just, you know, it's hard to just be like,
42:14
this is where I'm supposed to be right now.
42:17
You know, especially when you have other people saying,
42:19
oh, you should be doing this,
42:20
or you should be doing that.
42:21
Or, you know, and you're going,
42:22
everybody's shooting all over you.
42:24
You know what I mean?
42:25
And it's just, it's, you know, I'm like, listen,
42:29
I barely listen, you know, live up to my own expectations.
42:31
But my point is, is that,
42:35
that's why I always just try to remember where I'm at
42:37
and be grateful for where I'm at.
42:39
And, you know, and to remind myself like,
42:42
hey, if I ever get into that place again,
42:44
I want to make, you know,
42:45
never take these things for granted, you know?
42:48
Because, you know, it's more fun
42:52
to kind of live in the present and embrace the past
42:56
and see the great parts of the past, but not live there.
42:59
You know, embrace it and learn from it
43:00
and enjoy that that's part of me and what made me,
43:04
but I am where I am now, and that's what I'm going to do.
43:07
I'm going to live through it and accept it radically
43:09
with grace and hope and love.
43:12
Well, and our power is in our present, you know?
43:15
And that's so important.
43:18
This is, for anyone who watches this and, you know,
43:22
and parts of it resonates with them,
43:24
I just want you to know that this is what living
43:27
in alignment actually looks like.
43:29
It's not perfect.
43:30
It's not necessarily easy, but it is honest.
43:34
It is authenticity.
43:36
And just like I told Jay, authenticity is the superpower.
43:39
Authenticity is your superpower.
43:42
And the more that we shine our light,
43:45
the more that the people who need our light
43:47
are going to find us.
43:48
And if we're not being ourselves,
43:49
then they're not going to see the light, you know?
43:52
There are people who are out there that need Jay Baker.
43:56
There are people that are out there that needed Tammy Faye.
43:59
There are people that are out there that needed Jim Baker.
44:02
There are people that are out there
44:03
that I may not be able to reach, but others can.
44:08
And I don't just mean from a religious standpoint.
44:11
I've got coaching clients of every different religion
44:14
and no religion at all.
44:16
But I just mean living in that purpose
44:18
that our higher power has put in us to do.
44:22
And like you said earlier, you know,
44:24
it is almost like you don't have a choice.
44:27
You know, there comes a time
44:28
where you surrender to that purpose
44:30
and then you just have to go after it.
44:32
And it's the only thing that's going to give you
44:34
that fire within yourself, you know?
44:37
If I'm not speaking, if I'm not coaching,
44:39
if I'm not helping people find out
44:42
how to live their best life,
44:43
how to channel their purpose into the life that they desire,
44:48
then I'm bored, you know?
44:51
I can work a New York Times crossword puzzle only so much.
44:55
You know, and I can only do the Monday one without hints
44:58
because they get too hard after that.
45:00
But yeah, I mean, I have to start flowing in my purpose too
45:04
or I'm not happy.
45:05
And that's how you know you're in alignment.
45:07
You know, you can feel when you're in alignment.
45:10
Yeah.
45:11
Jay, if people want to follow your journey,
45:14
to be in touch with you, what's the best way?
45:17
What are your social media handles?
45:20
Revolutionchurch.com, you can lead you to a lot of places.
45:25
I am jaybaker, J-A-Y-B-A-K-K-E-R on Facebook,
45:30
on Instagram, on Strands.
45:33
I'm no longer on X anymore, fortunately, I would say.
45:40
But yeah, I'm on Instagram a lot.
45:42
You can contact me there.
45:43
You can DM me there, revolutionchurch94 on Instagram.
45:49
Revolution Church, just look for the R,
45:53
and it'll say Revolution.
45:54
I think it says Revolution Facebook
45:55
on our Facebook page there.
45:58
You can find us in all those places.
46:00
And our YouTube channel, Revolution Broadcasting.
46:04
We have services every week.
46:06
And I'm starting to,
46:09
we have clips up there from all the talks.
46:11
If you're like, oh, I don't know
46:12
if I want to listen to a talk, you can check out clips.
46:14
Maybe something will hit you
46:15
and you can listen to that talk.
46:17
I also just randomly put up little talks and little clips
46:20
and check in with people on YouTube all the time
46:24
and also on Instagram.
46:25
So I'm available on all those places.
46:28
And you send me a direct message,
46:29
you're more than likely you'll get me
46:31
and I will do my best to get back to you.
46:34
I can attest to that.
46:35
I did direct message you and you replied.
46:38
Yeah.
46:39
And I'm so glad you did.
46:41
Me too.
46:42
Yeah, Jay, I appreciate you being here.
46:44
Never stop using your voice.
46:47
Never stop fighting for justice.
46:49
You are living your own revolution of purpose
46:51
and keep sharing your light.
46:53
Will do.
46:55
Awesome.
46:56
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
46:57
I hope that you got as much out of this as we did.
47:01
This has been an amazing conversation
47:02
with the one and only Jay Baker.
47:05
Thank you.